Feds appeal order to turn over confidential files in terror case

Federal prosecutors asked a higher court Tuesday to overturn a judge's order that confidential court filings by the government in a local terrorism prosecution be disclosed to the defense.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman took the unprecedented action late last month, ordering prosecutors to produce the materials to attorneys for Adel Daoud, who is facing trial on charges he plotted to set off a bomb outside a Loop bar in 2012.

Coleman held off on the release after prosecutors notified the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday of its appeal of the judge’s decision.

Coleman had ordered that prosecutors turn over the government’s search warrant applications that were presented to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court in order to justify surveillance on Daoud.

The applications could potentially reveal if the investigation was sparked by the controversial government spying programs revealed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Daoud’s attorneys have said they need access to the materials in order to decide whether to challenge the search warrants on the grounds they violated constitutional protections against unlawful searches and seizures.

In her ruling, the judge acknowledged her decision to disclose the materials to the defense was unprecedented, but she said she felt it was necessary in this case to safeguard the right to effective counsel.

Daoud’s lead attorney, Thomas Anthony Durkin, had called the decision “historic.”

“This decision is ... courageous and very meaningful in assuring the preservation of the integrity of the adversarial process in federal terrorism-related criminal prosecutions,” he said at the time.

Coleman said the government’s argument that national security could be compromised by releasing the documents didn’t hold up because Durkin has top-secret clearance through his work as a civilian defense counsel in the case against 9/11 mastermind suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Daoud, now 20, came under FBI scrutiny after posting messages online about killing Americans, authorities have said. He was arrested in September 2012 after allegedly trying to detonate what he thought was a car bomb outside a downtown bar. Daoud, who lived in Hillside, was closely monitored by the FBI as part of an undercover operation. He has been jailed since his arrest.